Drew’s Deals

Home Theater on a Budget.

Saturday, February 14th, 2009 Home Theater on a Budget.

So you want a decent home theater system but you can’t get over the cost of one. You hear your co-workers talking about how they spent thousands of dollars on their system and the thought of that makes you cringe. What if we can put together a sweet system for less than a thousand dollars including the TV? Thats right less than $1000 who loves you? You know DrewsDeals has your back.

Lets start with the sound system

When it comes to sound you have thousands of choices even when you’re on a budget. After doing our research we narrowed things down a bit for you by selecting what we thought would be the best by categories and here are our winners:

If you’re looking for a simple COMPACT surround sound system with big sound its hard to beat this Logitech Z Cinema Advanced Surround Sound System from TigerDirect it’ll set you back $79.99 and its a lot of value. This setup will give you good sound and its easy to connect however it doesn’t have a DVD player, Digital Audio Inputs, or true surround sound system since it utilizes 2 speakers and a woofer. Also since it only supports 3.5mm inputs you’ll need to use this Cables To Go 6-Foot Y Adapter 3.5mm to 2-RCA Plugs to connect some of your equipment to it.
If you’re looking to step up to True Surround Sound then its hard to beat this RCA 5-Disc DVD/CD Home Theater System this thing has pretty much everything including a 5-Disck DVD/CD player, 250 Watts of power, AM/FM stereo, as well as a USB input for your MP3 players and such. The only thing that it doesn’t have is DVD upconversion.
Which brings us to the third option True Surround Sound With DVD Upconversion and if that’s what you’re looking for we got you covered there too with this Philips HTS3565D/37 1000 Watt DVD 1080P HDMI Upconversion Dolby Home Theater with iPod Dock. That’s right boys and girls 1000 watts DVD Upconversion and an iPod Dock.

Now Lets move on to TV’s

As I’m sure you already noticed the prices of TV’s has come down quite a bit and while for there are a lot of quality TV sets out there, there is also quite a bit of junk. You may think that you have to pay top dollar for big brands such as Sony and Samsung to get a quality TV but that simply isn’t true. If you want the latest and greatest out there then yes you’ll need to pony up the cash however make sure you understand what the specs mean before purchasing. For example most of us want a set with a super high contrast ratio, 1080p resolution, and 120Hz refresh rate (for LCD’s) and while those things are great my question to you is why do you want those things?

First lets go over this Contrast ratio thing did you know that there isn’t an industry standard for contrast ration? Meaning each manufacturer has their own standard for rating so essentially this is a useless spec when comparison shopping. Now lets look at the refresh rate in order to decide on what you need ask yourself what will you use the set for? If you’re going to use it for advanced gaming then the 120Hz refresh rate is something to consider otherwise normal 60Hz is sufficient since video doesn’t refresh that quickly. Now as far as resolution is concerned its true that 1080p is the greatest thing out there and you’ll notice a difference between 720p and 1080p if you’re watching a 50″+ from a distance of 8ft or closer and if I’m sitting that close to 50″+ TV I won’t be able to see the full screen without scanning across the screen. That being said lets get into it we’ll break it down by size:

Lets start with the 32″ size we found 2 great deals 1 is a new Toshiba the other a Refurbished Sharp:

37″ sets: Lets Start with this Hot Deal from Amazon Sharp Aquos LC37D43U 37-Inch 720p LCD HDTV For $579.99 Now this set is refurbished however it sells new for $1049. If you’d prefer a new set consider this Toshiba 37 720p LCD HDTV 2x HDMIfor $599.96.
42″ Sets: When it comes to this size I highly recommend the LG 42LG30 the reason I recommend it so Highly is we bought one as a gift for my in laws and it is a fantastic set. You can get it through TigerDirect for $699 or Amazon through their sellers. If you want a 1080p set consider this
TOSHIBA 40″ 1080p LCD HDTV 40RV525U For $769.99
46″ + Sets: When it comes this size I was only able to find 1 good set within our budget and that is the Westinghouse TX-47F430S 47 LCD HDTV Dispaly from TigerDirect

Media Streaming Devices:

Yes thats right what better way to enjoy that sweet TV and surround sound system than to be able to watch movies, TV series, all kinds of good stuff from Netflix, Amazon and more anytime you want. While there are a few devices that stream from Netflix I highly recommend the Roku Digital Video Player for $99. It can stream from Netflix in HD as well as from Amazon. Also its likely that they’ll add other sources such as Hulu.

You may have noticed that I didn’t list a Blu-Ray plyer in this post the reason for that is I truly believe that it won’t be long when everything moves to streaming media and Blu-Ray will become obselete. I hope you found this post useful and we’ll do our best to keep this updated with the latest and greatest.